Einstein and the Incredible Hulk Now Have Their Own Constellations (But You’ll Never See Them)

For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the stars and ordered them into constellations: the Hulk … the TARDIS … Schrödinger’s cat. Not familiar with these? That’s probably because you can’t see them without a gamma-ray telescope — and also, NASA just invented them.

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury blasted off on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou at 01:45:28 GMT on 20 October on its exciting mission to study the mysteries of the Solar System’s innermost planet. Signals from the spacecraft, received at ESA’s control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, via the New Norcia ground tracking station at 02:21 GMT confirmed that the launch was successful.

BepiColombo Spacecraft Launch on 7-Year Trek to Mercury for Europe and Japan

A joint European-Japanese mission to the tiniest planet, Mercury, blasted off from French Guiana on its long journey tonight (Oct. 19, Oct. 20 GMT).

That mission, BepiColombo, will spend seven years cruising toward its target, where it will separate into two spacecraft and orbit Mercury for a year — or two, if the mission is extended. The measurements taken there could not only solve lingering mysteries about the innermost planet, but also about the formation of our solar system and neighboring ones. The whole mission cost the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) almost $2 billion, according to press reports.

BepiColombo’s Path: Why Does It Take So Long to Get to Mercury?

The European and Japanese space agencies launched their first mission to Mercury yesterday (Oct. 19, Oct. 20 GMT), but now, the mission’s engineers and admirers have to endure a seven-year wait before the project’s science begins in earnest. The BepiColombo mission has such a long cruise time because it’s actually really difficult to successfully orbit our tiniest planetary neighbor. It’s so difficult that it took until 1985 before an engineer figured out any way to make the orbital trajectories work out properly. The problem arises because Mercury is so small and so close to the sun.

BepiColombo’s beginning ends

A stunning early morning launch lifted the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft into space on Saturday, 20 October. This marked the start of intensive, round-the-clock flight control activities to ensure the mission’s health and functioning in the harsh environment of space. At 13:45CEST on Monday 22 October, just 58 hours into its mission, the critical first segment of the fledgeling satellite’s long voyage to Mercury was wrapped up, as teams at ESA’s mission control centre declared the critical ‘launch and early orbit phase’ complete. The end of the beginning now beckons months of extensive in-orbit commissioning activities, in which operations teams will work extended hours daily until the end of December, performing tests to ensure the health of BepiColombo’s science instruments, its propulsion and other systems.

What It Felt Like to Be Aboard the Failed Rocket Launch to the Space Station

Everything was going smoothly — until NASA astronaut Nick Hague felt a sudden tremor. „The first thing I really noticed was being shaken pretty violently side to side,“ he said during his first publicly broadcast interviewssince his Soyuz rocket failed shortly after liftoff on Oct. 11. The rocket was meant to carry Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to the International Space Station in what would have been the American’s first trip to space. Instead, the pair’s emergency rescue system kicked into action after a problem during booster separation.

The next set of crewmembers should launch toward the International Space Station in December, despite the failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket earlier this month, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said. That failure occurred Oct. 11, causing the Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to make an emergency landing in Kazakhstan just minutes after liftoff. The investigation into the incident has been productive, and the Soyuz rocket likely won’t be grounded for too much longer, Bridenstine said today (Oct. 23) during a meeting of the U.S. National Space Council in Washington, D.C.

„We have a really, really good idea of what the issue is,“ Bridenstine said. „We are getting very close to understanding it even better so that we can confidently launch again.“ [In Photos: Space Crew’s Harrowing Abort Landing After Soyuz Failure]

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, initial report from its investigation into the failed Oct. 11 Soyuz crew launch should be complete by the end of this week, the agency announced in a statement released yesterday (Oct. 17). The agency’s head of human spaceflight, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also said in a news conference yesterday that Roscosmos will not launch another crewed flight until three uncrewed launches are successful and the investigation’s findings have been addressed. The Oct. 11 launch was aborted a couple minutes after liftoff because of an issue with booster separation, sending the two astronauts on board plummeting back to Earth.

Soyuz Launcher Recovery Plan Starts To Emerge

„Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos will carry out three unmanned launches by the end of the year before the next manned mission will be put in space, Roscosmos’s executive director for manned space programs, Sergei Krikalyov, told a news conference on Wednesday.

Feature – ISS Horizions Mission Alexander Gerst

Horizons’ is the name of ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst’s second mission to the International Space Station.The mission name evokes exploring our Universe, looking far beyond our planet and broadening our knowledge. Alexander would also like to make people realise that there is always a chance to go beyond their personal horizons. Alexander will be launched on 6 June with US astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft.Alexander will take over command of the International Space Station for the second half of his mission. Alexander Gerst is the 11th German citizen to fly into space. The astronaut is now in the last stages of training for his challenging spaceflight. The science programme is packed with European research: more than 50 experiments will deliver benefits to people back on Earth and prepare for future space exploration.

Further news / Weitere Nachrichten – Alexander Gerst

Tastes of space

There is nothing quite like the taste of home – especially when you live on the International Space Station. For ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst that taste comes in the form of chicken ragout with mushrooms, or lentils spätzle and sausage, specifically developed by Lufthansa chefs for maximum flavour and a long shelf-life.

Happy 300 days in space!

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst has just logged 300 cumulative days in space across two missions (Blue Dot and Horizons). He reached the milestone on 16 October and now holds the record for third-longest time in orbit of any European astronaut after Thomas Reiter and Paolo Nespoli.

Nasa’s InSight mission will target ‚Marsquakes‘

InSight will be the first probe to focus its investigations predominantly on the interior of the Red Planet. The lander – due to touch down in November – will put seismometers on the surface to feel for „Marsquakes“. These tremors should reveal how the underground rock is layered – data that can be compared with Earth to shed further light on the formation of the planets 4.6 billion years ago. „As seismic waves travel through [Mars] they pick up information along the way; as they travel through different rocks,“ explained Dr Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator. „And all those wiggles you see on seismograms – scientists understand how to pull that information out. After we’ve gotten many, many Marsquakes from different directions, we can put together a three dimensional view of the inside of Mars.“

Media resources | InSight

Homepage – InSight Media Resources

Further news / Weitere Nachrichten – Insight

How NASA Mars Lander’s ‚Steampunk‘ Claw Will Work (Video)

It sounds like something from a 19th-century sci-fi novel: A Mars robot with a metallic five-fingered claw that’s actuated by the melting of wax. But that robot is very real: It’s NASA’s InSight Mars lander, which launched toward the Red Planet in early May and is scheduled to touch down on Nov. 26.

Tiny Cubesat Snaps Photo of Mars for 1st Time Ever

A tiny Mars-approaching spacecraft has snapped a photo of its target, marking the first time that a cubesat has ever captured an image of the Red Planet. One of NASA’s two briefcase-size Mars Cube One (MarCO) cubesats acquired the image on Oct. 2, when it was about 8 million miles (12.8 million kilometers) from the Red Planet, agency officials said.

International Spacestation (ISS)

Liquid and Flame Science Work amid Japanese, Russian Maintenance

Two Expedition 57 astronauts are working to understand what happens to fluids being transported by spacecraft today. Another crew member also worked on combustion science gear as well as Japanese and Russian systems. Fluid physics and combustion research on the International Space Station helps scientists understand how well-known phenomena on Earth behaves in microgravity. For instance, fluids sloshing around inside fuel tanks can impact how a spaceship steers in space. The way flames burn and create soot in space can also create safety issues for crews.

Genetics, Vision and Earth Studies Aboard Station Today

Three Expedition 57 crew members are orbiting Earth today researching RNA sequencing and eye health aboard the International Space Station. The trio from the U.S., Germany and Russia also replaced combustion research hardware and activated Earth observation gear. Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor from NASA is helping scientists identify microbes and understand how their genetics change in space. She extracted and processed microbial samples today from swabbed station surfaces for later genetic sequencing using specialized hardware. Results will also help researchers observe how life adapts to the weightlessness of microgravity.

Station Preps for Japan, US Ship Operations Next Month

The International Space Station is getting ready for Japanese and U.S. cargo ship operations next month. In the meantime, the three residents onboard the orbital lab today configured science hardware and checked out safety gear. Serena Auñón-Chancellor from NASA worked in the Japanese Kibo laboratory today replacing gear inside a Multi-Purpose Small Payload Rack (MSPR). The MSPR provides a workspace that supplies power and video enabling research into a variety of smaller experiments. She spent the majority of the day working on video cable connections and swapping out a computer in the MSPR.

This Hunk of Metal Fell From Space and Landed in California

A walnut farmer in central California found a strange metal object in his orchard on Oct. 13. He called the local sheriff’s office, according to a KGET report. The sheriffs reached out to Vandenberg Air Force Base, and experts there reportedly said the burnt husk was likely a fuel tank from an Iridium communications satellite. Specifically, it came from Iridium 70, which according to the satellite tracking site n2yo.com fell out of its orbit three days earlier, on Oct. 10.

Salty Martian Water Could Have Enough Oxygen to Support Life

Salty water buried just beneath the Martian surface could have enough dissolved oxygen to support microbes, and perhaps even simple animal life such as sponges in some places, a new study suggests. This surprising conclusion could help reshape scientists‘ understanding of the Red Planet’s habitability, both past and present, study team members said.

PIA22796: Three Waves at Jupiter

Three waves can be seen in this image, which is an excerpt of a JunoCam image taken on Feb. 2, 2017, during Juno’s fourth flyby of Jupiter (perijove 4). The region imaged in this picture is part of the visibly dark band just north of Jupiter’s equator known as the North Equatorial Belt. Most of this belt is characterized by downwelling motions, but during perijove 4 it had several bright areas of upwelling clouds.

Beyond Solar System / Milchstraße & Kosmos

Astronomers Just Caught the Tiniest Cannibal Galaxy in the Universe

The sky is full of cannibals. Astronomers have long suspected that massive galaxies like the Milky Way become so big over time by swallowing up stars from their smaller cosmic neighbors. However, new research suggests that little galaxies also have big appetites.

The Cat’s Paw Nebula MIPS & IRAC

NASA’s Ailing Planet-Hunting Kepler Telescope Is Offline Again

NASA’s long-suffering Kepler Space Telescope returned to sleep mode just a few days after its most recent observing campaign began, the agency said in a statement released yesterday (Oct. 23). „Following a successful return of data from the last observation campaign, the Kepler team commanded the spacecraft into position to begin collecting data for its next campaign,“ the NASA statement read. „On Friday October 19, during a regularly scheduled spacecraft contact using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the team learned that the spacecraft had transitioned to its no-fuel-use sleep mode.“

Is NASA Leading A Shift In Administration Climate Change Views?

„Koren: The United Nations recently released a troubling new report on climate change that outlined some of the devastating effects the planet should expect to see in the coming years. You’ve said before that you believe rising temperatures can be attributed to human activity. But many of your fellow Republicans in Congress and the White House dismissed the news. Where do you stand on the report?

Space Force to be the Topic of Next National Space Council Meeting

The status of proposals to create a separate branch of the U.S. military devoted to space will be the subject of the next meeting of the National Space Council on Oct. 23. Vice President Mike Pence, in an Oct. 12 tweet, said that the interagency group will discuss „progress made and next steps“ on the formation of a Space Force, a plan formally announced by President Trump at the council’s last meeting in June.

Would a Space Force Mean the End of NASA?

Space, that final frontier, is something that catches the attention of a country naturally inclined to believe in ideas like „Manifest Destiny“ and American exceptionalism. But how well does a Space Force fit that bill? And would a Space Force reignite a military space race and fuel diplomatic tensions with China and Russia?

Can Sanctioned Roscosmos Chief Rogozin Visit The U.S.?

„The White House has temporarily lifted an entry ban imposed on the head of Russia’s federal space agency to allow him to visit the United States, the head of NASA has said in an interview with Russian media.”

Space Force Policy Memo Being Drafted to Establish New Military Branch

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday will hold a meeting of the National Space Council at the National Defense University to discuss the next steps toward creating a Space Force as a new branch of the U.S. military. During the last meeting of the council on June 18, Trump ordered the Pentagon to set up a Space Force but the president has not yet issued an official policy directive that lays out the steps ahead.

Plans for Space Force Laid Out at National Space Council Meeting

During the fourth public meeting of the newly revived National Space Council, chairman Mike Pence and other council members described the path forward needed to develop a sixth branch of the military known as the U.S. Space Force. Pence, who is also the U.S. vice president, gave the opening remarks at the meeting Oct. 23, which was held at the National Defense University in Washington.

Technology / Technologie

The latest mystery mission of the U.S. Air Force’s robotic X-37B space plane has now passed the 400-day mark . This mission — known as Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) — was rocketed into Earth orbit on Sept. 7, 2017, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Saturn V Rockets & Apollo Spacecraft

The Apollo missions were the answer to a challenge issued by President John F. Kennedy to put a man on the moon. But just to get there, scientists had to build a powerful rocket. And to actually land on the moon and return the astronauts safely, NASA had to develop new spacecraft and a new type of rocket.

Chandra X-ray Observatory Should Return to Action Next Week

A flagship NASA space telescope remains on course to return to action next week. A balky orientation-maintaining gyroscope sent the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which has been observing the heavens in high-energy light since 1999, into a protective „safe mode“ on Oct. 10. But that problem is nearly solved, mission team members said today.

Hubble Safe Mode

Update on the Hubble safe mode

NASA continues to work toward resuming science operations of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode due to a failed gyroscope on Friday 5 October (ann1811). Following the gyroscope failure, the Hubble operations team turned on a backup gyroscope on the spacecraft. However, that gyroscope did not perform as expected, reporting rotation rates that are orders of magnitude higher than they actually are. Since then tests were conducted to assess the condition of that backup gyroscope.

Hubble Space Telescope Nearly Ready for Action Again

It looks like NASA’s famous Hubble Space Telescope has recovered from the glitch that knocked the observatory offline more than two weeks ago. On Oct. 5, Hubble went into a protective „safe mode“ after one of its orientation-maintaining gyroscopes failed. Mission team members tried to recruit a backup gyro, but that instrument refused to behave, returning anomalous readings.

NASA Tests Astronaut Survival Systems for Orion Splashdowns

NASA and the U.S. Air Force recently tested astronaut survival systems for the first time since the space shuttles stopped flying in 2011. Those tests were part of the agency’s preparations for the first crewed flights of its Orion module, which is designed to carry astronauts out of our immediate neighborhood and toward more exotic destinations like the moon and Mars.

Entertainment / Unterhaltung

AstroCritic Review: ‚First Man‘ Shows You What Real Astronauts Are Like

I grew up in the 1960s, during the beginning of the space race. The first astronauts were my heroes, and it was the Apollo 11 moon landing that kicked off my dream of becoming an astronaut myself. I can remember like it was yesterday, when I was an 8-year-old, watching the scene unfold in the mission control center as Eagle approached the surface of the moon and then actually landed.

How to Get to Mars: ‚Trailblazing‘ Experts Talk Red Planet Exploration

A monthslong journey. Docking on a faraway moon. What scenarios would make a human voyage to Mars possible? In late September, four experts participated in an hourlong conversation about what a mission to Mars would actually look like. „An Evening with Trailblazers — Are We Going to Mars?“ took place at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, on Sept. 26.

Rocket Lab Picks Virginia Spaceport As US Launch Site for Small Satellites

he private spaceflight company Rocket Lab has a new spaceport, and it’s in Virginia. The California-based startup Rocket Lab, which aims to corner the small-satellite launch market with its Electron boosters, unveiled plans to launch missions from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport overseen by Virginia Space. The first mission could fly as early as next year.

Extraterrestrial Life Could Be Purple

Alien life might be purple. That’s the conclusion of a new research paper that suggests that the first life on Earth might have had a lavender hue. In the International Journal of Astrobiology, microbiologist Shiladitya DasSarma of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and postdoctoral researcher Edward Schwieterman at the University of California, Riverside, argue that before green plants started harnessing the power of the sun for energy, tiny purple organisms figured out a way to do the same.

Exoplanet Hunters Have a New Plan to Spot Hidden ‚Migrating‘ Worlds

There’s a telescope that can see thick rings of dust in distant star systems. These rings are huge — wide enough in some cases to encircle most or all the planets in our solar system. And they’re the birthplaces of exoplanets. Understanding how they work could teach us about how the planets in our own solar system formed.

History / Geschichte

Apollo 7 Astronaut Recounts Splashdown at 50th Anniversary Gala

Walt Cunningham was hoping the parachutes had opened. A member of the United States‘ first three-man space crew, Cunningham, together with Wally Schirra and Donn Eisele, were on their return to Earth 50 years ago Monday (Oct. 22), having spent the prior 11 days conducting the first piloted test of the Apollo spacecraft in orbit. All that stood between the Apollo 7 crew and the end to their mission was seeing their drogue and main parachutes deploy.